An Introduction to Misery

The options:

[Merchant]

Normally this would be disqualified as the Merchant release is essentially untouched from the officialsubs, but the only officialsub option is an SRT script and I know people aren’t gonna be :effort: enough to load up a script file manually.

[Primrose]

All they had to do to make this Amazon UK edit better… was to not edit at all.

[ViVidTrans]

Hardsubbed. I don’t know why.

The timing is terrible btw.

Original TL.

[Void-Subs]

Oh boy.

Original TL.

I (regrettably) watched this episode through with each release. Except for Void-Subs, because… well, you’ll see.

Visuals

Kill me now, senpai.

Karaoke

Maybe we don’t deserve OPs & EDs.

Spoiler:

Opening

Why even bother if you aren’t going to try?

Ending

I like how the groups’ translations are essentially the same. Must just be a coincidence, huh?

Typesetting

Thank the gods there was nothing of value to typeset.

Spoiler:

Wait, what part of the review is this? Near the beginning? Oh boy, I’m so sorry for what you’re about to witness.

Encode

Normally, I can’t be assed to care about encodes. After all, everything tends toward the tolerable these days, yeah? Well, apparently not so much with ViVid Strike.

Note that for all images in this review, you can open them in a new tab or something if you wanna see ’em in all their 2560×1440 glory. For the encode images alone, you can also change the extension in your browser to png if you’re that picky about it.

Spoiler:

It can’t be overstated how little I tend to give a shit about encodes. But all of these are so bad, I would rather drop the show than be forced to watch it with their bullshit. There is no excuse for this.

Blurry and jaggy, watching any release for this show makes it seem like someone with an STD jerked off all over your screen, and then sprayed a mist of piss over it. Why? I dunno, fansubbers have never been the best at interacting with people outside of the internet. (Or on the internet.)

Primrose and ViVidTrans are straight disqualified from consideration as the releases to watch, but it’s not like Merchant and Void-Subs aren’t trying their best to match ’em.

But if you think the visuals are gonna be the worst thing about these releases, you must not be familiar with the fansub scene.

Scripts

They’re all bad.

Dialogue – Merchant

Watching these subs was like witnessing a rape, except I didn’t get hard.

Spoiler:

Some lines are left untranslated because I don’t know. (Hell, the entire episode preview is untranslated.) But this is probably for the best.

Dialogue is constantly shifting between present tense and past tense, in an eye-twitchingly off-putting manner. And when I say constantly, I mean you will absolutely not be able to guess which tenses the characters are going to next be speaking in the next line.

Basic grammar is as straight out the window as the Amazon TL’s parents must have gone.

In a different review, I would highlight every single instance as a reason why I’d have to give the script an “F”, but this a subtitle comparison thread, and the fansub options contain many more half-aborted sentences to marvel at.

Dialogue – Primrose

The depths to which people will go to claim themselves fansubbers…

Spoiler:

Primrose is technically an edit of the Amazon UK script, but it reads like a translation of its own. …and given how many errors these fuckwits added, that is not a good thing.

Original: “It’s too large for me alone, so it worked out.”

Original: “We figured out my shift schedule at the gym.”

Original: “Hello. Good morning, Fuuka.”

Original: “When Ms. Haru arrived, it was time for the morning run and training.”

Clarification was missing in the Amazon TL, so they added this. Dark_Sage TL Note: “high pace” is not the same as “high participation”

Original: “She executes her firing and bombarding flawlessly in fights with magic.”

Original: “I was only able to win because of my coach and all of you supporters.”

Original: “I hope you can come to terms with her.”

You’d think this would be a good “See D_S, it’s about the quality of edits rather than the quantity of them” learning moment for me, but GJM-DDY’s Flip Flappers is still disqualified, sorry.

Dialogue – ViVidTrans

We need a weeb holocaust.

Spoiler:

ViVidTrans’s problem as far as dialogue goes is that it’s way too throwback to avoid throwing up. Even when I first started fansubbing in ’08 this kinda overly literal translation style was years out of style.

Poorly worded dialogue with distinctly unnatural terminology is the hallmark of the ViVidTrans experience. It’s pretty clear these kids have spent so long in their scanlation ghetto that they’ve forgotten how normal people speak.

Maybe I have too, but I’m handsome so I don’t even need to talk to get what I want.

Dialogue – Void-Subs

You could throw a dart at a pile of shit and hit something of more value than the Void-Subs team.

Spoiler:

lol

Comparison

I gathered more than a few screens for this. But have 10 of my favorite comparisons. There’s some… Well, let’s just say there’s some.

2. One of the biggest problems with weeb subs is that they’re weeb subs

1. > 2017

> being this problematic

ViVid Subs Suck

In order of least bad to most bad:

1. Not watching this show
2. Watching it raw
3. Transcribing the Japanese dialogue and throwing it into Google translate while you masturbate using sriracha sauce as lube
…
96. [ViVidTrans]
97. [Merchant]
98. [Primrose]
99. [Void-Subs]

Now some of you may take this as me endorsing ViVidTrans as the release to watch simply because it is technically better than the rest. I am absolutely not doing that. Not only do I refuse to recommend any of these shitsubs shown today, all of them actually receive straight F’s. This is the most miserable race to the bottom I have had the displeasure of witnessing, and as a fellow human being I cannot see you put through the torture of watching this show with any of the reviewed subs.

Don’t watch ViVid Strike if it means you’ll have to watch any of this failfag bullshit. Also, don’t watch ViVid Strike.